The Literature Festival is definitely my favourite event in the Dubai calendar and I look forward to it every year like most women look forward to the Harrods sale. I became a ‘friend’ of the Festival last year and decided it was worth doing again: you get use of the outdoor lounge, complimentary tea and …
For the last 2 years I’ve aimed to read 20 books a year. I almost made it in 2011 (I got to 19). I thought that once I moved to Dubai I’d have more time to read but in 2012 I read only 11.5 books (that’s not even one a month – pathetic). This year, …
I enjoyed the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature so much last year I decided I was definitely going to go again this year, especially when I found out Tan Twan Eng was going to be coming to Dubai. He has become one of my favourite authors – I read The Gift of Rain in 2007 …
I’d never heard of this book or its author, Chris Cleave. I was in the bookshop at Dubai Airport in April, waiting for my mum and grandmother to come out of Customs, and I saw this. I read the blurb on the back. It told me nothing: We don’t want t…
I bought this book in late 2011 (so it counts towards my Mount TBR Reading Challenge!) and had been looking forward to reading it as I loved Middlesex when I read it in 2005. It was so… different. I found The Marriage Plot to be a disappointing …
I’d mentioned in an earlier post that I went to a session at the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature and Romesh Gunesekera was on the panel of writers. I’d read Monkfish Moon back in 2004 and had thoroughly enjoyed it. The Sandglass sat on my …
I downloaded this to my Kindle late last year (so it counts towards the Mount TBR Reading Challenge). I met someone at a wedding in December and we started talking about books – she said she couldn’t put this one down. I was in the middle of a cou…
I read One Day by David Nicholls in the first half of 2011 and thoroughly enjoyed it (apart from the end). Before I left for Dubai a friend told me she was reading Starter for Ten by the same author and that it was hilarious. I’d already started r…
At the beginning of 2011, a friend introduced me to Michael McIntyre. Not to him personally, but to his comedy. Of course I’d heard of him but I’d never sat down and watched his shows. She lent me two DVDs which I’m ashamed to say I kept for ages….
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid had been sitting on my bookshelf for almost two years. I’d been meaning to read it but hadn’t got round to it yet. When I was sorting out my books for Dubai – what would be shipped or given away – I fou…
Notes by Nectar 